Clyburn dares TeaPublicans to repeal ACA

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by Dirk McQuigley
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/11/7/918479/-BREAKING:-Clyburn-dares-TeaPublicans-to-repeal-ACA

I'm watching Face the Nation, and current House whip James Clyburn (D-SC) basically dared the Republicans to go ahead and try to repeal health care.

Talking to Host Bob Schieffer, Clyburn mentioned several examples of the type of people who benefit from the historic legislation. Additionally, Clyburn interjected that repeal is a failed tactic that the Republicans have embraced each time the Democrats have passed popular and lasting legislation such as Social Security and the Voting Rights Act.

(snip)
Clyburn said, "Let them try to prevent a family who has a child with diabetes from getting insurance. Let them tell a man that has paid his premiums on time for 30 years that his policy is canceled because he just got prostate cancer. Let them tell a woman who has breast cancer, sorry you're policy is cancelled."

Clyburn noted that the Republicans, specifically Strom Thurmond, campaigned in 1966 and 1968 on repealing the Voting Rights Act. How did that work out for them.? Not so well. Ditto for Social Security. Despite calling FDR a socialist, the GOP was never able to gain enough traction to repeal Social Security. The closest they came was 2005 when George W. Bush expended all his political capital in a failed attempt to privatize Social Security. Given what we know about the uncertainties of the stock market, the rebuke was prescient.

The Democrats, led by their whip, are trying to provoke the Republicans into falling into a trap. The only reason they were elected, was because of the economy. They criticized Obama for spending most of the past two years trying to pass HCR, all at the expense of the economy. Moreover, the TeaPublicans also have campaigned — mind you with a straight face — that they will balance the budget and cut spending, and cut taxes. Especially when the ACA reduces the deficit by 140 billion over ten years, says the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

The question is will these GOPocrites spend the next two years trying to repeal something which they don't have the votes for? The passive aggressive and obnoxiously immature tactic of trying to defund various federal agencies will overreach as usual.

The problem the TeaPublicans have forced on themselves is that their entire agenda is stopping President Obama from getting a second term. Their second goal is to dismantle his signature achievement - something that I must remind fellow Democrats that Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton all tried and were not successful.

That might be a great goal for their friends at American Crossroads, the US Chamber of Commerce, and the Teaparty Express, but it is going to fuck average Americans big time. People want jobs. That's why they voted for the Republicans. If the jobs don't come, especially if they don't come because these ass-hats spend the next two years pursuing endless investigations, a Quixotic attempt to repeal the ACA, they are going to get shit-canned as fast as they swept into office.

UPDATE: As I said, this was a hit-and-run diary. I forgot to mention how quickly the TeaPublicans will try to shut down the government over the ACA, by using the Bush tax cuts as a hostage. The Republicans think that people will blame the Democrats. I'm betting they won't. Make our day ass-wipes. Good luck with that...

[XOKCowboy]

1. So the ONE DEM on the Sunday Talk Shows made a good point...

All I heard was everyone else saying that Obama now has to move more toward "the center". :puke:

[bullwinkle428]

2. I want to see JC kick Hoyer's ass for House Minority Whip!

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3. Clyburn: I'd Like to See GOP Try to Take Fundamental Right to Health Care

Clyburn: I'd Like to See GOP Try to Take Fundamental Right to Health Care Away From People
transcript
http://thepage.time.com/2010/11/07/transcript-mcconnell-on-face-the-nation/

CLYBURN: Well, I think that those people who are saying those things are really flying in the face of history. As I study history, though I was around at the time, a little bit too young to really experience, a lot of members lost their seats because of Social Security. A lot of members lost their seats -- the Democrats lost its place in the South because of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

And I remember a senior citizen, Strom Thurmond, that you talked about earlier -- I remember Strom Thurmond going back to Washington after 1968, saying we are going to repeal the Voting Rights Act. Well, the fact of the matter is what we did with health care is to make that a fundamental right of every citizen. And I would like to see which one of the Republicans would propose that we take away a person's, or family's right to have their child born with diabetes come under their insurance policies, tell a woman with breast cancer or a man with prostate cancer that we're going to allow the insurance companies to drop you after you paid your premiums on time for 30 years and now that you've got sick, what you've been guarding against, you're going to allow them to drop you.

I don't think they're going to be able to do that. They had some good campaign rhetoric out here. But the fact of the matter is this health care plan, when people know what it is, as opposed to what Republicans say that it is, we didn't have enough money to defend the plan on television. They had a whole lot of money to misrepresent what the plan really is.



Read more: http://thepage.time.com/2010/11/07/transcript-mcconnell-on-face-the-nation/#ixzz14cgT1ojY

[Tatiana]

4. I hope he wins Whip against Hoyer. He speaks the truth powerfully.

He and Pelosi make a great team.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

5. Dems are playing right into Repub hands...

they don't care if HCR is completely repealed or if they have the votes for it. They will get a repeal to pass the House. The repeal will get killed in committee in the Senate. HCR is not so popular as you think...most polls show that it has a negative rating from the public. When they repeal it in the House...it stalls in the Senate or worst case for Dems is that it PASSES the Senate only to be vetoed...when that happens, the Pubs will use this to attack dems in the next election cycle.

You assumption is that this is popular...with the way it was written and is being implemented, it helps too few and hurts too many with increased prices...and the repeal issue for the Pubs will be a winner...mark the thread and come back to it in about 700 days...

sP

[Proud Liberal Dem]

6. It has its flaws

and is not looked upon extremely favorably by most people, true, but..............a lot of people simply don't like because it didn't go FAR ENOUGH (and, probably, not fast enough either). The Republicans are making the argument that the law went TOO FAR and that government has essentially taken over health care, which, of course, isn't true at all (except in their fevered delusions). They're also making the assumption that the midterm elections were themselves a referendum on repealing "Obamacare", which they'll find out soon enough is also NOT true. I would bet good money that if a poll was put out there by somebody asking whether or not things should go back to the way things used to be before the new health care law, I wouldn't bet on many people except the die-hard teabaggers wanting to. Maybe even the teabaggers (most of whom will likely BENEFIT from the new law at some point in their lives) might not even want to go back to the way things were- if they knew, of course, what is actually in the REAL law instead of the LIE law that the Republicans have brainwashed them into believing exists. :eyes: If the Republicans start seriously trying to repeal it (which I'm totally sure they are planning on doing within the first 100 days of Boehner's House Republican Tea Party), I think they'll be surprised how most people actually react.